


hallucination of the past

by Anonymous



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Crying, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fight Scenes, Hallucinations, Harley wasn't in the snap, I'll add more tags as i go, Like REAL slow burn, Lots Of Sad, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Morgan & Peter & Harley are siblings by circumstance, Morgan is adopted, Pepper is Morgans's mum, Peter & Harley are brothers by circumstance, Peter is a mess, Slow Burn, The team are supportive, Tony & Pepper never happened, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark is a problem, Tony is dead at the start, eventual starker, mentions of anorexia, mentions of bulimia, very sad, will get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-28 15:47:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A couple of weeks after the death of Anthony Edward Stark, his student, protégé and apprentice, Peter Benjamin Parker finally starts to calm. The peace after the storm, you could call it, but that is far from what he comes to learn, feel, hear and see. The truth is, he’s in a rut. This rut is a special kind, because although he has visited Tony’s home often, sat on that jetty too many times to count, and when he was feeling particularly hopeless, has submerged himself into the ice cold stream of water that Tony was washed down not too long ago, he still can’t seem to understand that Tony, his only semblance of love besides his friends, his only familial connection besides his own Aunt May, is gone.





	1. flirted with you all my life

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! This is a very extreme fanfic, I will add tags but some very important ones for this chapter are mentions of bulimia and anorexia. There's very very very subtle underlying suicidal thoughts, but they're barely existent. There's just a few things to clarify before starting the fic, so please read on.
> 
> Pepper and Tony never got married, Pepper adopts Morgan because of how much she reminds her of Tony. Steve never goes back in time to be with Peggy, but does pass on the legacy to Sam because of Tony’s death. Natasha doesn’t die, but there will be a short explanation about how they got the soul stone in the end, although it the lives of these characters will not dramatically impact the story. Peter and Tony had a very father-son relationship when Tony was alive, but because of Peter’s brittle mental state, it changes into something new, as you will read. Enjoy 😊

A couple of weeks after the death of Anthony Edward Stark, his student, protégé and apprentice, Peter Benjamin Parker finally starts to calm. The peace after the storm, you could call it, but that is far from what he comes to learn, feel, hear and see. The truth is, he’s in a rut. This rut is a special kind, because although he has visited Tony’s home often, sat on that jetty too many times to count, and when he was feeling particularly hopeless, has submerged himself into the ice cold stream of water that Tony was washed down not too long ago, he still can’t seem to understand that Tony, his only semblance of love besides his friends, his only familial connection besides his own Aunt May, is _gone_.

He stays awake at night staring at the poster of Iron Man on his ceiling for months, meets Quintin Beck aka Mysterio aka Peter’s worst nightmare, obtains EDITH and holds her as close to his heart as Tony once had his Reactor in his own chest. It’s been the better part of a year – or worse part, if you asked Peter – since the incident, and yet Peter comes to realise that the calm he feels isn’t so much as _tranquil _as it is _numb_. It’s heartbreakingly numb, the feeling of utter loneliness. The illusions that Beck had put into his mind aren’t gone, Peter already blamed himself for the death of Tony – _if he’d just been faster, maybe was in a different place at a different time, if he took the glove, if he begged “_Please, Mr. Stark” _he’d be on his knees, if that’s what it took “_I need you” – but they did push him to the edge. The edge, in this case, was not the fall of something from a height, it was the consistent _knock, knock, knock_ of Peter’s own self-hatred cracking somewhat carelessly against his already fragile mind. The edge, it had turned out, was what Peter discovered he needed to see Tony again. To feel his adoration, to hear his voice, to hold him again like he had minutes before the end of–

It’s been three months since his encounter with Mysterio. Peter still attends school. Still does his homework. Still visits the best sandwich place in Queens (after it was rebuilt). He still loves his Aunt May, and is glad that she and Happy can stitch a routine together for him. He gets picked up from school now, doesn’t care to swing with his suit. They make sure he doesn’t see any sort of crime on TV, always leaving it on the documentary channel or checking the news on their phones if it is necessary. They eat dinner together when Peter can drag himself out of bed. They don’t question the puffy eyes or the bed hair anymore. Peter’s routine consists of bed, school, bed. He hates that his life has come to this, and it’s not that he can’t bring himself to do it, because if he forced himself to move, he fucking can. The problem isn’t that he can’t, it’s that he _won’t_.

Why would he want to? He won’t see Tony anywhere, living and breathing. He still has a place in Stark Industries whenever he’s ready to take it – Pepper Potts made sure of that – and he’s forever grateful for that. He knows that Tony means as much to her as he means to Peter, but he can’t look into her eyes without remembering what she had said to him – _We’re gonna be okay, you can rest now._ He knows that it isn’t her fault that he’s dead but if she had of asked him to hold on for just a little while longer- no, no. He’s thought about this before, too many times before really. He shouldn’t try to blame Pepper, but if he doesn’t try to blame someone else, even in private, he begins to remember that it really is all his fault.

Today is a Monday, which means he needs to get up and have a shower because he hasn’t had one since Friday morning and he can’t worry Ned and MJ like he had for a while after that day. He can hear Aunt May and Happy pottering around in the kitchen, making his breakfast and speaking softly about their concerns for Peter.

“We all miss Tony,” May says quietly, “but Peter… he can’t seem to understand that he won’t be coming home.”

Peter can hear Happy stop moving, hears him place something onto the counter, hears the shuffle of his feet across the kitchen. “May, we can’t force him to move on. You know how Tony treated Peter. Peter already lost his dad _and _his uncle. They were both such heavy father figures in his life and Tony acted like he was his son.”

Aunt May sniffles, breathes out heavily, “maybe it’s because I wasn’t strong enough for him.”

Peter’s phone starts vibrating on his desk, placed across the room to force him out of bed to turn it off, which signals his need to start moving. May and Happy stop talking but he knows from experience that they’re most likely hugging right now, trying to calm themselves down so that Peter doesn’t feel guilty for what he’s putting them through.

But he does.

There’s a knock on his door and May ducks her head in, face barely visible in the dark room. “Come on, honey. It’s time to get ready for school.”

She disappears a second later, knowing that Peter will start moving in a second to turn off the alarm, and he does get up to turn it off but that’s when he makes the biggest decision of the day – does he go back to bed, or does he go have a shower? He does this every school day, knowing that May and Happy won’t be too fussed over whichever one he chooses, but they do encourage him to continue going to school even though he just wants to stay in a dark, _dark hole in the ground-_

And then it happens. There’s the smell. It’s so familiar and it causes Peter’s throat to tighten and he shakes his head because _that’s Tony’s smell. _He jumps across the room, knocks into a few things as he goes, hears Happy and May call out in surprise as things fall but he just needs to turn the light on because where the fuck is that smell coming from he needs it right now like he needs air he needs to hold it to his chest and fucking _drag it into his body pleasepleasepleasepleaseTONY_

The light turns on and he hits the floor two seconds later.

\-----

Peter is in bed, with a damp cloth on his forehead and a window open. He has the blanket pulled up to his chin and the first thing he notices is the poster that’s missing from his ceiling. There’s yellowed marks from where it used to be, tiny pin-prick holes from where the thumb tacks held it to the roof, the glow in the dark Star Wars battleships now visible from where they used to be hidden because he’s almost an adult and he’d rather have people see Iron Man on his roof over some tiny kids stickers.

“Peter,” his aunt says softly as she enters the room. She’s holding a glass of water and some ibuprofen which she places on his bed side table, and they she reaches forward to take away the cloth and feel his face and cheeks.

“What happened?” He feels groggy and his head does hurt a lot which is weird, but not anything new. He tries to sit up but May places her hand on his shoulder and keeps the pressure there so that he can’t rise.

“You passed out,” May explains, dragging his desk chair closer to the bed.

“When?” It’s still Monday, right? He has to call MJ and Ned to let them know that he’s okay.

“This morning. You knocked some stuff over on the way to turn the light on, maybe tripped over and banged your head. Do you remember anything that happened, baby?” May’s voice remains soft, like she’s talking to a frightened animal as Peter wracks his brain for something.

“Oh!” Peter pushes himself up, looks around the room, “Tony–!”

It hits him life a freight train again and again. His face crumples in mere seconds and he pulls his knees to his chest, breaths ragged and if there was a world record for the fastest time to go from ecstatic to downright depressed, he deserves that title. He can feel his heart beating against his chest, constant _thumpthumpthump._

“Oh,” May breathes out, her shoulders sagging. “My baby boy, he’s not here.”

“I know,” Peter sniffles. “He’s dead, I know, he won’t be coming home.” _To me._

May shifts and hums as she looks around the room anxiously. She just wants to help him but the only thing that can help him is Tony but he’s gone and she can’t bring him back and it just breaks her heart that she can’t do anything to heal her sweet, sweet nephew’s heart. She stands just the same, leans over and kisses Peter on the forehead and announces that she’ll be back in a “hot minute”.

Peter curls in on himself the second that she leaves, heart caught in his throat as he struggles to breath dammit, he just needs to take some deep breaths. He knows, before he passed out, that he distinctly smelt Tony right near him, if not directly behind him. The thought in itself makes Peter a bit calmer, the knowledge that Tony could be here with him. He’s not religious in any way, don’t get it wrong, but he feels as though he’s being watched, like Tony was his guardian angel.

Which is what prompts Peter to speak.

“Mr. Stark?” He whispers softly, eyes clenched shut tight, ears ringing. “Mr. Stark, if you can hear me… I miss you. God, I miss you so much.”

He stops speaking, waiting for a reply despite knowing that it won’t happen because that stuff just isn’t possible, he doesn’t deserve a miracle and he doubts its going to happen anyway until he hears a faint tapping on the glass of his window.

Peter peers up from under his blanket, eyes wide as he takes in the incredulous sight before him. It’s one of those plastic kids’ masks, the ones with the elastic that goes around your head, and it’s stuck on something but that doesn’t matter because it’s an Iron Man mask and if that isn’t a sign then what else is?

“Hey, kiddo,” Happy pushes open to the door to his bedroom and Peter jumps in his bed. “You alright?”

“Happy! The mask!” Peter turns for half a second to look at Happy then back at the window and the mask is gone, no sign it was ever there in the first place. Peter leans over his bed side table, knocking things off in the process as opens the window the whole way, leaning out if it ridiculously to inspect where it might have gotten off to.

“Peter!” Happy leaps forwards and grabs Peter’s hips to pull him back inside the building. “What the hell are you doing?!”

Peter still manages a strong hold on the window frame but can’t spot the mask anywhere and allows Happy to yank him back onto his bed. “There was an Iron Man mask outside my window! It was just tapping against the glass but now it’s gone.”

Happy looks drained all of a sudden, eyes tired and lost. He sighs while rubbing at the stubble on his cheeks, “buddy, we’re gonna take you to the compound.”

“What? Why?” Peter shrinks back onto his bed, holding his pillow against his chest as a physical barrier between himself and Happy. “If there’s a mission, I’m sure they can handle it themselves, right?”

“No, there’s no mission. But I think you should spend some time with the others.” Peter begins to object but Happy hushes him, finger up to signal silence. “You need to see how the others are coping.”

Peter tries to think of an argument, maybe a way to talk him out of it but nothing comes to mind. Realistically, it’s been almost a full year since Tony’s death, coming up to the anniversary actually, and statistically speaking, it takes at least a year for someone to stop grieving. Going to the compound could do Peter some good, to see how everyone else has functioned without Tony around, and so he doesn’t fight with Happy over it and gets changed to go.

\----

What Peter was not expecting to see is how _not okay _the others really are. The compound is the same as always, grey and sterile, but back when Tony was alive, there was at least a semblance of _home _in it somewhere. Now that he’s not here, things have taken a change for the worst. It’s still clean, despite the shambles that the home owners seem to be in. There are no longer any AC/DC posters on the walls, no music playing over the Bluetooth system and not a soul in sight. Peter is as confused as he’s been in a long time, and when he looks to Happy for clarification, he realises that he won’t be getting an explanation from him.

When they reach the kitchen, Peter has to blink a couple of times to fully comprehend the pictures in front of him. And he means a literal _physical _picture is in front of him, and he has no idea why. On the fridge, there’s a photo of Tony. But there’s also one on the counter, on the shelf, on the wall (multiple, in fact) and one huge one that sits at the very end of the hallway. It’s odd seeing Tony’s face in so many places, when he’s really not anywhere at all.

One door in the hallway opens up and Steve Rogers walks out, James Barnes not far behind. They’re both talking and smiling, happy, it seems, and then they notice they have company. Once their eyes land on Peter, they turn as white as a ghost. Peter doesn’t know whether to say hello or run away.

Steve moves first, a couple of tentative steps forward, until he changes his mind and strides forward. Peter’s not prepared for the hug he receives, nor was he prepared to see Captain America cry today. He looks at Happy, brows furrowed and lips pursed tight. Happy looks solemn, head bowed and hands clasped in front of him. Peter throws his arms around Steve’s back, barely encompassing the whole of his huge torso.

“Hey,” Peter whispers softly. He’s up on his tiptoes now, back bent at a ridiculous angle to accommodate for the man holding onto him. He looks over Steve’s shoulder and sees Bucky has disappeared.

Steve is heaving against him, his sobs violent but silent in a way that makes Peter automatically think that he’s spent a lot of time doing exactly this. He murmurs something against Peter’s neck but it’s so hard to hear that Peter just hushes him and runs his hands over Steve’s back.

This is not something he was prepared for. He’s never seen Steve cry before – never known him to be the crying type really, more stoic maybe – and isn’t sure how to act at the moment. The last time someone had cried this hard in front of him had been when Aunt May had cried about the death of Uncle Ben, but that was a really long time ago.

“Cap, what’s wrong?” Peter asks once Steve has settled. Steve pulls away from him and wow, that took a lot out of him. His eyes are still glassy, puffy and his face is red. He looks exhausted, sounds exhausted if his breathing is saying anything, and his shoulders have dropped so low and he looks smaller than Peter but that’s impossible because this man always holds himself so well, always smiles, always polite and never backtalks.

Before Peter can think for a second longer, he’s attacked by a small red-head woman – not really small, she’s about the same height as him – who wraps her arms around his neck so tightly that it might be considered a choke hold. And then she repeats what Steve had just done, but her body just shakes and she gives off no other clue to her crying other than the tears that leak through Peter’s shirt and onto his shoulder.

The hugging doesn’t happen to that extent again, but Bucky, Clint, Sam and Bruce all pull him in for a half hug. Everyone seems to be upset in their own ways and for the second time that day, he feels misplaced in front of all these people that he used to consider as a second family.

Happy directs them all to sit on the couch in the adjoining living room but no one moves yet, almost as if their afraid that if they take their eyes off Peter for a second, he’ll vanish. With all the attention he’s receiving, Peter feels like he might just collapse into a heap of sobs himself. He can feel his throat clenching, as it did when Steve first hugged him, but now his eyes are burning and he just wants to cry along with everyone else.

Peter moves first, sits in the very centre of the sofa and allows everyone else to sit where they want to, which turns out to not be very far from him at all. Natasha sits to his right with Clint next to her and Steve to his left with Bucky on the other side of him. Sam and Bruce sit on the coffee table directly in front of him, and Happy seems to find his place standing behind Peter.

They all look at him expectantly, Steve and Natasha more so, while the others seem fine just watching in curiosity rather than urgency.

Happy clears his throat and gets the ball rolling for them, “Peter, anything you wanted to say?”

Peter shifts to look at Happy, still as confused as he was when he first walked in when he notices something just past Happy’s shoulder that he never saw before. There are photos of Tony _and _Peter. More of Tony, but there are photos of Peter on the wall too, one on the counter that he couldn’t see from the angle he was standing in the kitchen, and it’s crazy because it’s almost like he died too, if someone walked in and didn’t know better.

“What’s with all the photos?” Peter asks softly, turning back to look at Steve, whose eyes widen like he can’t believe what he’s just heard.

Steve tries to speak, chokes on his words again, and turns to Bucky to speak for him. Bucky places his hand on Steve’s shoulder and explains, “it’s been a while, buddy.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Last time he saw them was Tony’s funeral, and that was hardly that long ago- no, wait. Peter stares at Bucky’s eyes for a second longer and it clicks. He hasn’t seen these people since Tony’s funeral. Which, in a couple of weeks, will have been a whole _year _ago.

“Oh,” is all he can say. He tries to think of a lame excuse, maybe a reason other than _I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to see your faces again after I failed you all_, but it comes out as, “you never visited.”

Everyone seems to be hurt by that, Natasha the most when she turns to Clint and starts crying again. Why are they all so upset again? It was rude to say, yes, but what else could he have said? He opens his mouth to apologise but Happy places his hand on his shoulder and says, “they actually did, buddy, but every time we asked you if you wanted to see them, you weren’t very… enthusiastic to say that least.”

Oh, right. The first few months after Tony’s funeral, Peter had gotten a lot of visitors. Mostly Ned and MJ checking up on him, even Flash a couple of times, but these guys would visit more frequently than anyone else. They’d drop by twice a day, if not three times, and sometimes it seemed like a schedule that they’d set up to visit. But any time Aunt May or Happy had come into the room to let him know, he would scream into his pillow and tell them to _leave! They can’t see me! I killed Tony, I killed him, I KILLED TONY._

No matter what anyone said, he wouldn’t listen. It was like he couldn’t hear them. But they knew what he said he’d done, so they must be disgusted with him, knowing he’d killed the leader of their group, part of their family.

“We missed you, Peter.” Bruce says so quietly that Peter almost misses it after being lost in his own mind.

The limit of confusion that Peter thought he could reach has been surpassed yet again after Bruce speaks. He laughs, because surely, it’s a joke. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Peter, when Tony died…” Clint begins to explain, struggling to find the right words. “Well, he wasn’t the only one to disappear from our lives.”

Peter, well what is he supposed to do? He laughs again, looks around incredulously, unbelieving of what Clint has said. “But I was never… _that _important. Not as important as Tony; he was part of your family; I was always just an outsider.”

“Honey,” Natasha takes his hand, holds it in her own. “You were his, and by association, that makes you ours.”

He laughs again, but this time it sounds manic. Definitely slightly crazy. He rises from the couch, hands in his hair, eyes wild as he searches the faces of every person in the room. He stares at the picture on Tony on the counter for a ridiculously long amount of time and shoves his way past the others to pick up the frame. He turns back to the team and points at it, “I _killed _him. Do you understand? I killed Tony fucking Stark. His death was my fault. And yet you’re all sitting here acting like _I _died!”

The amount of noise that rises up after that is monstrous. It seems like everyone is speaking at once, they’re all standing together, all moving forward together, closing in on Peter, assaulting his ears with _it’s not _and _he loved you _and it’s all so much, too much, he can’t–

Peter doesn’t know what he’s doing, just knows that he’s running, moving as fast as he can down the hallway, turns left at the very end, runs along a glass corridor that breaches into another part of the building, crashes into a wall and screams at FRIDAY to _LET ME IN LETMEINLETMEIN _and the wall slides back to reveal a series of rooms that seem so familiar but also feel too cold to be here right now, but then Peter is slamming a door open and running into a room that he’s never been in before but knows is _his. _He locks the door, tears his clothes off like he’s got hyperthermia and scratches at his skin and opens the door to the ensuite and turns on the shower to cold and steps in and he’s finally feeling again, knows he shouldn’t because he’ll get sick but all he can do is sit on the floor and sob and scream and violently shakes his head in his hands because _nonononono this isn’t right he doesn’t deserve this he’s not allowed to feel like he isn’t guilty for WHAT HE DID HE KILLED HIM GOD TONY’S BLOOD IS ALL OVER HIS HANDS IT’S IN HIS MOUTH IT’S IN HIS LUNGS AND HIS STOMACH AND IT PAINTS HIS HEART IN SUCH A DISGUSTING WAY_

He vomits all over the floor of the shower, just stomach acid because he hasn’t eaten in so long and he hasn’t looked in a mirror for longer than that so when he finally gets out of the shower after what feels like hours, with his throat rough from screaming and his fingers and toes wrinkled, he is shocked to see the boy in the mirror.

He’s bones and skin, tiny and pale with a tinge of blue from the cold and he’s so much smoother in places that used to have hair in places like his chest and thighs and groin and its confusing, because he distinctly remembers Mr. Harrison talking about how this is a side effect of an eating disorder, specifically anorexia or bulimia but he’s not sick like that, he just doesn’t want to be eat, that’s all, he’s just not hungry.

The boy leaves the bathroom slowly, shivering, finally looks at the room and isn’t sure where he is until he breathes in and smells it. This is as close to Tony as he’s going to get for a long time. He peers around the room, notices the windows haven’t been open in a long time, the bedding hasn’t been changed for even longer, not with the way the sheets are still splayed like someone had just woken up and gotten out of them. And if this is Tony’s room, and that’s his bed, then he was definitely the last one to be out of here and that’s all he wants for a second, to feel what Tony felt when he woke up on the day of his death. He hits the bed a second later, that poor frail boy, sunken into that bed of sheets that smell so much like Tony that it’s both comforting and suffocating. The boy stares up at the roof of the room and asks FRIDAY to play Tony’s playlist and he falls asleep listening to Vic Chesnutt sing _Flirted With You All My Life. _


	2. show me all my life's been missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter watches surveillance footage and needs some TLC.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend you listen to Religion by Colton Avery for this chapter

Grief is something that needs TLC. Tender loving care. But it’s hard to give it to someone that doesn’t want it, or pretends that they don’t need it. For Peter, he’s beginning to realise that he may be TLC starved. He is surrounded by people that care but he can’t bring himself to appreciate it for what it is. Everyone here wants to help him, but he doesn’t want them, he wants Tony. Which is dumb, to say the very least. Because Tony is dead.

Peter has been staying in the compound for almost a week now. He hasn’t left Tony’s bedroom, receives food through the door, uses the ensuite to shower and fulfil his other bodily requirements, but he hasn’t seen another physical person since he first locked himself in here. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because he needs time to heal. Even though it’s been a year. And it’s coming up to the anniversary of his death.

After a little bit of research, Peter has come to realise that he may be touch starved. Technically, it’s been a week since anyone touched him, but he’s felt so numb for so long that the last time he really touched anyone was when Tony hugged him after he came back from wherever he was after he was dusted. Every time he’s touched now, it’s just pressure, similar to sitting in a chair or being wrapped up in a blanket. There’s the physical sensation of touch, but there’s nothing worth holding on to.

Speaking of being dusted, another thing that Peter realised after confining himself in this room was that technically, the Avengers (if they wanted to be known as that now) hadn’t seen him for longer than 24 hours in _6 years. _He was dusted for 5 years, came back to fight and then disappeared again after Tony’s funeral. Peter thinks he’s supposed to feel worse about the way he acted, with the way that he ignored their existence for his own benefit, although it can hardly be considered beneficial. But the thing is that Peter doesn’t know how to act. He has never taken anyone’s death this hard. Not his father’s, not Uncle Ben’s, no one. And yet, by some act of power, Tony had managed to waltz into his life and fit himself nice and snug right up against Peter’s heart. As if he always belonged there.

Peter rolls over in the bed, splays his arms out and shoves his face into Tony’s pillow. The bed is starting to smell less like him now. Smells more like guilt and tears, permeating through the sheets, through the mattress, right into the foundations of this place. Peter’s rotting it from the inside out.

There’s a knock on the door, a murmur about food and a pause of bated breath, hoping for a reply. Peter just stays on the bed, doesn’t move or make a single sound. They leave, and he’s alone all over again.

“FRIDAY,” Peter says a couple of minutes later, shifted to sit up with his back against the headboard. “Play the video.”

“Peter, this is self-neglect–,” FRIDAY begins.

“Just play it.” Peter orders, struggles to sound authoritative and comes across as weak-willed instead. “Please.”

There’s a moment where Peter thinks she won’t play it, but then the projection is up on the wall across from the bed and Peter prepares himself for the emotional torment he keeps inflicting on himself.

Tony struts across the screen, only the top of his head visible from this angle because of the security camera position. Peter follows not long after him, head down and shoulders hunched. He looks like a child that’s just been scolded. They stop just outside the elevator down to the lab where Tony puts the pin in and then turns to Peter with his arms crossed.

“Kid, you knew the consequences of doing something like this.”

“I know, Mr. Stark,” Peter murmurs, refusing to meet Tony’s eyes. “I never meant for it to get this far.”

“I know you didn’t, Pete.” Tony says softly, eyebrows furrowed in a way that shows concern rather than frustration.

The door to the elevator pops open and they both shuffle in, standing on opposite sides of the small room. Tony presses the button to go down while side-eyeing Peter. He’d never noticed the outright concern that had been expressed for him before he started looking through the security footage. Happy gave him access to it, let FRIDAY know he could watch it in the hopes that it would help him but it’s only managed to trap him into this bubble of a world where Tony still exists, and he’s still watching out for Peter.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open, revealing a mess of a room with benches covered in spare parts and tiny little tools. Dum-E is in the corner with a dunce cone on its head and a half-finished miniature hadron collider resting against it. Peter’s suit is laying on a bench that is mostly cleared except for the clothes that Peter had on over it when he had first arrived. There’s blood on the torso of the long-sleeved white shirt and a large portion of fabric is missing from the left thigh on both the suit and the pair of pants laying on the bench.

Tony looks back at Peter, inspects him up and down and notices that his hunch isn’t from embarrassment, he’s holding onto the side of his ribs like he’s in pain and he’s very obviously resting all of his weight on his right leg. He motions for Peter to move closer, and he notices the minute limp he has, barely noticeable except for the fact that Tony is looking for it now.

“Kid, what did you do?” Tony asks softly now, so softly that it seems like he’s speaking to a wild animal.

Peter curls in on himself and feels his eyes burn hot and his throat clench. He begins to speak but his voice breaks and Tony makes a tiny distressed sound in the back of his throat. “He was moving so fast, I didn’t have enough time to move them, I just had to let him hit me. I know, if I was faster, no one would have been hurt but I’d rather be hurt over them; it wasn’t their fault.”

Tony breathes heavily out through his nose, turns to his work bench and pushes everything off onto the floor. Pieces of metal go flying when they ping off the floor, and the sound of the crash is so loud that Peter jumps a little bit. Tony frowns at him and says, “hop up on here, kid. Take off those pants too. I want to take a look at your leg.”

Peter looks at the floor with a hard stare, tries to think of a way that he can convince Tony that he’s fine and he doesn’t need to be babysat. He must take a few seconds too long because Tony is moving closer, his brown eyes so soft and the frown lines so harsh on his face as he places a shoulder on Peter’s shoulder to encourage him to move. Peter nods and moves towards the bench, shrugs away Tony’s hand and Peter, the one watching the video from Tony’s bed, winces at the rash movement and berates his past self for forgoing any form of contact with the man.

In the surveillance footage, Peter begins to undo his pants but struggles to bend down to pull them off after he gets them partially down his thighs to reveal the bandage and gauze he’d somehow managed to get on. When he was at home, Aunt May had helped him pull his pants on, much to his dismay, but he was late getting to the compound and after showering that morning, the small nicks and cuts were so tender that Peter thought he was going to cry every time he moved.

Tony tuts at Peter in sympathy and walks towards him silently, gently wraps his arms around Peter, under his armpits, and lifts him up on to the bench. Peter yelps from the pressure of Tony’s arm against his ribs and bites out an apology, the clenching in his throat moving to his mouth now as he bares his teeth in pain. His head presses into Tony’s shoulder for a second and then Tony is moving away, looking at Peter with methodical eyes as he scans the boy’s body.

Peter’s pants aren’t completely off, but with Tony’s help, he gets them off as well as the bandage and gauze and then he’s sitting there with sweat on his brow and he’s breathing out such ragged breaths that Tony begins to think that he might pass out. When questioned though, Peter simply says that he’s fine and there’s no reason to worry.

“Peter,” Tony says through clenched teeth, as if he too is in pain. “I’m going to worry about you whether you want me to or not.”

The Peter from now stops breathing for a second, tears welling up in his eyes as he watches Tony turn away from him and begin to look around for his first aid kit. The Peter from then lets his head loll backward and fails to notice Tony’s reaction. Tony’s face is pained, pale, his hands are shaking and he is making quick, jerky actions instead of the careful, precise ones that he usually does. He seems to get worried when he doesn’t find the kit immediately, beginning to push more things from the bench and hurrying from place to place to find it. His eyes finally land on it on the bench behind Peter, and tries to make a joke about Peter always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it comes across as more of a fact and when Peter tries to laugh, he ends up wheezing and reaches over to pull his shirt off from the collar. The shirt must be too abrasive, because it rubs against the wound on his torso and Tony freezes when he hears Peter make the most violent sound he’s ever heard. The sound is a cross between a sob and a bark, the feeling so painful that Tony feels his own ribs throb in sympathy for the hurt his poor boy feels.

Tony moves to stand in front of Peter again, thinks about how strong Peter is, to act like there was nothing wrong with him when he’s hurt so badly. He analyses Peter’s body, eyes dragging across his skin and he sees that there is a lot more than just those two wounds but they’re not as bad as the main problem. The wound on Peter’s thigh isn’t a cut or a nick, like he’d originally described to his Aunt, it’s a chunk of skin that’s been sliced away but is still holding on somehow. Tony notices quickly that the femoral artery isn’t hit, which lets him breath a little lighter, but there’s still a sense of urgency about getting it stitched up. When Tony looks up at Peter’s face, he notices that his eyes are glassed over and his breathing is a lot deeper, shallower than it should be. Tony’s eyes flick to look at Peter’s torso, sees that there is a slice of a wound and there’s definitely a couple of broken ribs but no internal bleeding.

“Fuck, Peter,” Tony breathes out shakily, scaring himself with how not in control he is right now.

“FRIDAY,” Peter groans, tries to take a deep breath but stops half way because of the pain. “FRIDAY, scan me.”

Of course, the kid is being rational right now, using his brain instead of standing there like a tree trunk and doing nothing. FRIDAY replies, “seventh and eighth rib are fractured, eleventh and twelfth ribs are broken. The fifth costal cartilage is pressing against the base of Peter’s right lung. Minor incision spanning three inches. Severe damage on left thigh, no damage to femoral artery, basis of wound: began as puncture wound but advanced to 9-inch incision wound due to high pressure. BP reads 135-over-85. Would you like me to dial emergency service?”

“No!” Peter shouts, regrets it immediately when he bows off the bench. “No, Mr. Stark can take care of me.”

Tony pauses for a second, looks at Peter and sees him looking right back. “Peter, I don’t think I can.”

“You _can_,” Peter nods frantically, “just take me to the med-bay over there.”

Tony knows that he can, he could do it for any other person, knows that he could easily take whoever it was and lay them on the gurney, stitch them up just fine and be on his merry way. But this is _Peter, _and for some reason the kid looks at him like he hung the fucking moon and stars, and Tony knows that if Peter wanted anything, he’d be ready to ask if he’d prefer a gold or silver platter.

It’s for this exact reason that Tony dumps the first aid kit, now realising how useless it really is, and moves towards Peter. He pauses, thinks about how he’s going to carry the kid over to the room. He’s already decided that he’ll carry him over his arms, but he has to choose between hurting either Peter’s thigh or his ribs more than they’re already hurt. Risk internal bleeding from lung puncture or risk somehow causing further damage to the wound on his leg? Confirmation with FRIDAY tells Tony that there’s a good inch-and-a-half until the incision would hit the femoral artery, so Tony grits his teeth and moves to grab Peter.

“Peter, buddy, I need you to turn so that your leg is closest to me,” Tony motions for Peter to move across the bench. The boy does, albeit slowly and he tries to mask his pain by biting his lip to prevent from crying out. When he reaches the edge of the bench, side on, Tony wraps an arm around Peter’s chest, fingers gripping his shoulder as tightly as possible so that there’s no need to press into his ribs. He then moves to wrap and arm around Peter’s leg but the second his skin meets Peter’s leg, the kid is howling and throwing his head back. It makes Tony want to hurt himself for hurting Peter.

Tony apologises, grips Peter tighter and positions him so that the wound is pressed closed against his bicep. Blood pours out of it the second pressure is applied and Peter throws his head from side to side, silently praying for the pain to stop. Tony can’t seem to bring himself to look anywhere but at Peter’s face, sees the sweat drip from his forehead, the tears that are falling in a steady stream from the corners of his clenched eyes and into his hair, the way he isn’t sure about whether he wants his mouth wide open and breathing raggedly or clenched shut to hide the sounds of pain he’s making.

They start to move, the med-bay less than 50 feet away, but Peter is sweating so much that he starts to slip, and reflex causes Tony to stop and jostle him up against his chest but it was such a bad idea, so stupid because the sweat on Tony’s arm has gotten into Peter’s leg and now Peter is sobbing in quick, short breaths, throws the arm that isn’t pressed against Tony chest over the man’s shoulder, grips the back of his neck and tells him to _hurry, god, please hurry. _

Somehow, Tony finds more spirit, hears Peter beg in so much pain and carts him quickly, knows he’s hurting Peter more but is choosing to move quickly and hurt him over moving slowly and risk dropping him completely. He yells at FRIDAY to open the door, which she does, but now Peter is pressing his face to Tony’s neck and is moaning with every step he takes because he walks like a fucking lumberjack, all strength and no grace. When they get into the bay, Tony shouts for FRIDAY to close the door and then Peter is laying on the gurney in his underwear, chest rising and falling slowly as he tries to catch his breath and stop making noise.

Tony pulls a green whistle from the door, takes Peter’s hand and closes his fingers around it and then presses it to his lips, tells him to puff on it like a cigarette but _I don’t smoke, Mr. Stark, _and Tony laughs a pained laugh with _good, kid, I’m glad_, and then Peter’s breathing it in while Tony asks FRIDAY to get Bruce and Stephen down here to help out and he sets up an IV for Peter, sticks it in his arm and quickly washes his hands and arms, puts some gloves on and begins pulling out needles, bandages, anaesthetic, thread, forceps, clamps, scalpels and a fibre optic headlight just because he’s freaking out that much.

Bruce and Stephen come charging in not even a minute after they were called. Stephen automatically starts washing his hands while Bruce just stands there, gawking at Peter on the table, saying “What the fuck, Tony?”

“The kid is a ticking time bomb, okay?” Tony explains through gritted teeth, “it’s not my fault he has a fucking persecution complex.”

“Fuck you,” Peter bites out over the whistle.

“You wish, kid.”

Stephen demands that Bruce hurries, that’s he’s wasting time, and even though Peter isn’t bleeding out, his heart rate can’t depend on the whistle and they need to fix this now before he gets an infection. Stephen puts gloves on while Bruce is washing his hands, rushes to Peter’s side, asks FRIDAY to give constant updates on his vitals while he inspects the gash on his leg.

This is where Peter stopped watching last time, he doesn’t care to relive the act of being injected with anaesthetic and then stitched closed. The scar on his thigh feels like it’s burning just watching the video. But he hasn’t got anything better to do, so he might as well finish it and see what happens when he’s too high to properly understand what’s happening.

FRIDAY informs Stephen that his BP is 130-80, but his heart rate is 70 when it’s usually at 50 and that visibly terrifies Tony. She also informs the men that if Peter isn’t treated faster, there’s a 70% chance that he will go into shock. Peter, still sucking on his green whistle, laughs at that and lets his head roll to the side as he looks at Tony. He widens his eyes to a comically large degree and says _shock _like he’s being zapped and it would be funny if the thought of Peter convulsing on the table didn’t send Tony’s heart into his throat. FRIDAY proceeds to inform everyone that now Tony’s heart rate is so high, he might end up having a panic attack.

That makes real-time Peter pause for a second, thinking back to when this happened but can’t remember anything besides the white light of the ceiling and the killer headache he woke up with after it.

Stephen tells Tony to pull himself together, but that just makes matters worse. He flies around the room in a frenzy, unsure of what to do while Stephen and Bruce work on separate parts of Peter’s body. Tony zips past the side of the gurney and plans to run away because his kid is just laying, bleeding and in pain, right in front of him and he can’t do anything, but then Peter shoots his hand out and grabs Tony’s wrist.

Tony freezes, looks back at Peter with wide eyes and a grim look on his face, but that quickly changes. Peter is smiling. A soft smile. He’s such an innocent person that it makes Tony regret bringing Peter into all of this to begin with (again, because Tony regrets plenty of things). Peter is looking at Tony like he doesn’t know there’s anything else to see, like Tony is all there is, and it makes now-Peter’s heart clench as he watches panic flit across the older man’s face.

There’s a split second when Tony looks like he’s about to book it out of the room, and then Peter says something that’s so quiet that it doesn’t play back through the speakers, but whatever it is makes everyone stop for a second, seems to shock everyone, and then Stephen and Bruce are continuing and Tony steps forward, leans over Peter and places a hand on his cheek as he whispers something to him.

“FRIDAY, can you rewind and enhance our voices in that last part?” Peter asks, leans forward in the bed, lets the blanket fall past his waist and onto the bed. He crawls towards the end of the bed while FRIDAY does as she’s asked, hoping to hear what they’d both said.

The video plays, Peter catches Tony’s wrist, and then, “you always take such good care of me, Mr. Stark. I love you.”

Tony then leans forward and places his hand on his cheek, and the volume turns up again because Tony spoke so quietly that it wasn’t picked up in the first or second rerun. The third time it plays, Peter’s ears strain to pick up the words.

“I’d die for you, kid. I’d die one million different ways as long as you could live.”

“But I’m alone now.” Peter whispers at the screen, grief-stricken. He lifts his hand to his own face, hold onto his cheek, pretends that it’s Tony’s because that’s all he’s been doing lately. Pretending and praying that Tony exists, is still alive and he hasn’t left Peter alone in this world.

Peter throws the blanket back on the bed, steps over the tray of food and leaves the room for the first time in a week and storms down the hallway. He passes Clint, Natasha and Bucky on the way and they don’t say a single word, just look at him in sympathy. He sees his reflection as he walks past window after window, knows he’s only wearing briefs and knows that they’re falling off his slim hips but can’t bring himself to care. He finds the huge frame of Tony that was hanging at the end of the hallway in the kitchen and stares at it for a long time. The others catch up to him quickly but keep their distance and watch him with wary eyes.

Peter Parker stands in front of the framed photo of Tony Stark. He scans the harsh lines of his face, sees the soft brown of his eyes, the grey hairs showing in his beard and hair. He’s wearing those stupid glasses that he gave to Peter and he’s not even looking at anyone, he’s staring off into the distance like some hero and Peter’s jaw begins to shake and he thinks he might throw up as he throws his hand at the glass and his eyes are burning so badly now that tears are falling freely and a sob finally escapes his throat and he just starts _screaming_.

“You fucking left me here! You never cared about me! You didn’t want to be here for me! I never meant anything to you! You went and threw your life away for people that you didn’t even _know _and I’m _dying, _Tony! I’m dying and you _don’t care_! You never fucking cared about anyone but yourself and I don’t fucking care about those people that came back, I _don’t_! God damn it, Tony, I just want to fucking _die_.” His hands are hitting the glass so hard and so fast now that he can’t feel the glass shattering and hitting the floor and his voice keeps breaking over the sobs and his breaths are so violent that he’s beginning to hyperventilate. “How could you do this to me?! _I love you! I do! _But I just want to _die!”_

Clint stands behind Peter and tries to grab his arms while Bucky stands in front of him, taking the kids’ hits and trying to get him to calm down, to breathe, God, please, _breathe, Peter._

Natasha is standing off to the side, feeling useless while she watches him scream and fall apart directly in front of her, his eyes so red and his hair a mess and he’s so skinny, he’s so small, he used to be such a strong boy and now he’s so small, such a small, poor boy.

“Let me _go! _LET ME GO! TONY! I HATE YOU! I FUCKING _HATE YOU!” _Peter bucks against Clint, tries to get past Bucky to get to the frame but can’t make it through the mass of a man that is standing in front of him. He takes a deep, shuddering breath after a little while and slumps against Bucky, sobbing freely now as he beats against his chest weakly when Bucky wraps his arms around his tiny body. The metal arm is freezing but it’s just a numb pressure and then Peter is heaving against Bucky, trying to throw up but has nothing anymore. “Please, Bucky, just let me die. I want to die.”

“I can’t, kid. I’m sorry,” Bucky’s voice strains as he looks up at the roof, holding Peter tightly to him as his own eyes burn. “I can’t let that happen to you.”

“Why not?” Peter asks softly.

“Because you’re the only one we’ve got left,” Bucky replies, “if we lose you, we’ve got no one.”

“’The only one’?”

“The only one that still has hope.”

Something hot blooms in Peter’s chest and he peers over Bucky’s shoulder to look at Tony. Maybe this is the TLC he needed from the beginning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems like it's getting better, hey? Idk it might continue getting better or it might get worse


End file.
